Page 37 of I Am Sin

The judge is a large man—his skin is dark, and he wears those half glasses. He looks at me, and his eyes are saying something. He’s a good man. He’s trying to do what’s right.

“This is the matter of Dragon Locke.”

I sit with a person—a young woman with brown hair and blue eyes—who is my guardian ad litem. I don’t know what that means, but I memorized the words. She sits with me while my parents sit at a different table.

The judge, whose name I can’t pronounce, turns his gaze to my parents.

“Mr. and Mrs. Locke,” he says gravely, “do you understand what you’re about to do here?”

“We do, your honor,” my father says.

“You are voluntarily giving up parental rights to your son,” the judge says again.

“Yes, your honor.” My father clears his throat.

“And you’ve discussed this with counsel, and you’ve come to the conclusion that it would be in the best interests of all parties involved?”

My mother sniffles, wipes her eyes with a tissue.

My mother cries a lot.

She’s been crying ever since Griffin got hurt.

They’ve accused me of some very awful things. Things I would never do.

I don’t understand a lot about what’s happening. I’m barely nine years old. I’m getting to be a big boy, but all I know is that I haven’t been living with my parents ever since what happened with Griffin.

I’ve been living in a place that locks me in.

I don’t like being locked in.

It makes me angry—makes me think about doing things I know I shouldn’t do. Things that I know are wrong.

The lady beside me has told me to be quiet. Not to say anything. When I look at my mother and father—the two people who used to love me the most in this world—I can’t help it. I leave the table and run over to them.

“Mommy, Daddy, I’ll be good. I promise I’ll be good. I won’t do anything wrong ever again. Please don’t make me leave. Please.”

My mother doesn’t look at me. She looks down at the table.

But my father does. He meets my gaze. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he does look me in the eye sternly.

Mommy always said I have Daddy’s eyes, though I never understood why because his are brown and mine are different. But I used to like that he and I shared eyes. We were close. He gave me a drum.

But as I stare into those eyes now, they don’t seem familiar at all.

It’s almost like I’m looking at a stranger.

A stranger is a person who wants to hurt me. I learned all about strangers first from Mommy and Daddy and then from my kindergarten teacher years ago.

We don’t talk to strangers.

We don’t go anywhere with strangers.

Why has my daddy become a stranger?

They think I hurt Griffin.

They think I did something absolutely horrible to her.

---